Re: Dvorak (& Lojban)

[HACKER G N <c9709244@alinga.newcastle.edu.au>]

> On Thu, 23 Oct 1997, George Foot wrote:
>
>  > > [obLojban-related:] >
> > Bringing this back on topic again, is this yet another parallel between
> > logical language learning and logical keyboard layout learning? I.e., is
> > it true that Lojban is relatively simple to learn as a second language
> > (given some degree of dedication), while if one learns Lojban as a first
> > language, learning other languages is more difficult (than learning Lojban
> > second)? The above is somewhat confusing; put bluntly, is learning A as a
> > first language and then Lojban simpler/easier/quicker than learning Lojban
> > as a first language then A?

After a bit of thought on the matter, George, I've decided that this isn't
really an appropriate analogy. The reason that Dvorak is easier to learn
after qwerty than qwerty is to learn after Dvorak is that Dvorak is MORE
INTUITIVE than qwerty, not necessarily more logical. The only way in which
it is more logical than qwerty is that it is designed to make it easier to
type the letters that are more common NATURALLY in English. By contrast,
Lojban is decidedly UN-intuitive and UN-natural. Terminators aren't
natural, a grammar based on predicate calculus is most decidedly
unnatural, and there seems no rhyme or reason to which sumti places take
an abstraction, and which take a concrete, as Mark Vines pointed out. If
you were going to look for a keyboard that was the analagous equivalent of
Lojban, I would say that it would be a keyboard with all of the keys in
alphabetical order - I understand the original typewriter keyboards
actually used this layout. Whereas, if you were looking for a linguistic
analogue to a Dvorak keyboard, then probably something like Interlingua
would be the go, which was designed so that all the most familiar words
for a speaker of a European language were presented in Interlingua in
their most universally recognisable forms.

This is to say that Lojban is logical but A PRIORI, whereas Dvorak is
logical but A POSTERIORI. Analagously, the original typewriter keyboards
were also logical and a priori, and Interlingua is logical and a
posteriori.

Geoff